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Sunbelt Software Announces Top 10 Malware Threats For November
Published 4th December 2009
Stats from Leading Anti-malware Developer Show Trojans Continue to Dominate Malware Landscape; Accounting for Six of the Top 10 Threats
Clearwater, Fla. – December 4, 2009 – Sunbelt Software, a provider of Windows security software, today announced the top 10 most prevalent malware threats for the month of November 2009. The report, compiled from monthly scans performed by Sunbelt Software's award-winning anti-malware solution, VIPRE® Antivirus + Antispyware, and its antispyware tool, CounterSpy®, is a service of SunbeltLabs™.
For November, SunbeltLabs reports that after seven straight months as the number one threat, the password-stealing Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen is no longer the top threat. It has been replaced by Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT, which accounted for almost 20 percent of all global malware threats in November. Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen is the second most prevalent piece of malware accounting for 6.00 percent of all threats, which is a drop off of more than 41 percent from 8.48 percent of all threat it achieved in October.
New to this month's top 10 list are Trojan.Win32.Generic!SB.0, which is premiering in the number three spot with 4.19 percent of detections; and Exploit.PDF-JS.Gen (v) at number six with 2.97 percent. Meanwhile, three detections from last month’s top 10 list dropped out of the list entirely: Trojan.Win32.FakeXPA (v) with 2.18 of detections, Packed.Win32.Tdss.Gen (v) with 1.74 percent and Trojan.1 with 1.53 percent.
“Trojans are the preferred malware tactic cyber-criminals use to commit social engineering-based attacks,” said Sunbelt Software’s vice president of Threat Research Michael St. Neitzel. “The fact that six of the top 10 malware threats are Trojans demonstrates the ubiquitous nature of these threats. Everyone should think about security before they open attachments in email, click on links in email messages or posts from social networking sources.”
The top 10 results represent the number of times a particular malware infection was detected during VIPRE and CounterSpy scans that report back to Sunbelt Software’s community of opt-in users. These threats are classified moderate to severe based on method of installation among other criteria established by SunbeltLabs. The majority of these threats propagate through stealth installations or social engineering.
The top 10 most prevalent malware threats for the month of November are:
1. Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT 19.82%
2. Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen 6.00%
3. Trojan.Win32.Generic!SB.0 4.19%
4. Exploit.PDF-JS.Gen (v) 2.97%
5. Trojan.Win32.Malware 2.60%
6. Trojan.ASF.Wimad (v) 2.32%
7. BehavesLike.Win32.Malware (v) 1.72%
8. INF.Autorun (v) 1.66%
9. MyWebSearch Toolbar 1.43%
10. Trojan.Malware 1.14%
To see a graphical comparison of the top 10 most prevalent malware infections between October and November, please visit http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/malware-threat-report/.
About SunbeltLabs
SunbeltLabs specialises in the discovery and analysis of dangerous vulnerabilities (i.e., security holes, bugs, maligned features or combination of operations) that could be exploited for Internet and email attacks. The research team actively researches new malware outbreaks, creating and testing new threat definitions on a constant basis. For detailed threat research information and to view the top 10 threats in real time please visit SunbeltLabs at http://www.sunbeltsecurity.com.
About Sunbelt Software
Headquartered in Tampa Bay (Clearwater), Fla., Sunbelt Software was founded in 1994 and is a leading provider of Windows security software including enterprise antivirus, antispyware, email security, and malware analysis tools. Leading products include the VIPRE® and CounterSpy® product lines, Sunbelt Exchange Archiver™, CWSandbox™, and ThreatTrack™.
For more information about Sunbelt Software, please visit the company’s website at: http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com. To learn more about current activities, products, and ideas at Sunbelt Software, please visit Sunbelt Software’s corporate blog at http://www.sunbeltblog.com. To view this release online, go to http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Press/Releases/?id=323.
Copyright © 2009 Sunbelt Software. All rights reserved. All trademarks used are owned by their respective companies.